Mendocino County auditor, DA at odds over funding

Mendocino County Auditor-Controller Meredith Ford is questioning whether District Attorney David Eyster's plans for $315,000 of asset forfeiture money are allowable, causing his budget to show a large overrun while both of them wait for a legal opinion from the county's attorney.

Eyster spoke to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors Monday about the overrun, which he said would be a "negligible" $84,000 -- 1.9 percent of his total budget -- if he is allowed to use the asset forfeiture funds as proposed.

Second District Supervisor John McCowen asked for an explanation of why that figure had jumped to just under $400,000.

Eyster told the board he hadn't transferred the asset forfeiture money to his budget after the Auditor's Office had on June 25 -- "days before we were going to close this year's budget," -- told him the transfer was on hold while the office waited for an opinion from County Counsel Tom Parker about "whether these are allowable asset forfeiture expenditures, and/or, are we just supplanting the budget."

Eyster continued, "At this point, we're still waiting for the word from county counsel and the Auditor's Office as to what they believe the issue is."

Eyster said the Auditor's Office hadn't expressed such concerns for 10 years.

"We believe that what we're doing is legal and proper, and as of June 25, we were told there was going to be an opinion ... coming on this; it's still not here," Eyster said.

His fiscal analyst replied to the Auditor's Office, saying asset forfeiture had been transferred in past years with the Auditor's Office's authorization, and asking what the concern was.

"The issue with Mr. Eyster's use of asset forfeiture money is that the paperwork he supplied to my office showed that he wanted to use asset forfeiture money to pay for basically all of his office expenses," Ford told the board. "My initial read of the federal guidelines of the use of asset forfeiture money does not say that they are to be used for everyday operations."

She expressed hope that Parker had "done some research and can back me up or tell me otherwise."

Parker told the board he had received Ford's request to review the federal guidelines, and said while he'd been "derelict" in issuing an opinion, he'd spent some time during the summer reviewing the federal guidelines.

He continued, "I suspect to some degree that if you apply the guidelines, as vague as they are, some of the concerns of the auditor controller are not unfounded. But I cannot tell the board or the auditor controller as I sit here this minute exactly how far those concerns go."

Board chairman Dan Hamburg asked if the board could, in light of the ambiguity about the asset forfeiture money, still pass its budget.

"I think it's probably close enough to be all right, but I think there are some questions that could be made," Parker said. "If the county is ever audited ... by the federal government over the asset forfeiture funds, I would not want the county to find itself being dinged ... for the use of asset forfeiture monies that the feds might find were not properly spent."

Eyster said he wouldn't accept the transfer of the funds, as Parker recommended, until the issue is resolved. In the meantime, he said, his operations would not be compromised.

Parker said later that he would issue a legal opinion on the matter no later than Sept. 23.

Tiffany Revelle can be reached at udjtr@ukiahdj.com, on Twitter @TiffanyRevelle or at 468-3523.